The 1979/80 season saw Doctor
Who abandon the umbrella theme that had proved quite a success with the
foregoing “Key To Time” season in favour of returning to the more
traditional format of self-contained serials. The first story to be
broadcast as part of the show’s seventeenth run would be Terry Nation’s
four-parter “Destiny of the Daleks”, a serial that to this day holds the
distinction of attracting more viewers than any other Dalek story in the
show’s history, new series included.

Graham Williams had originally
approached Nation with the idea that he script a Dalek

serial to open season
seventeen, however Nation only agreed to do so on the condition that he
could resurrect Davros, the Daleks’ crippled creator first seen five years
earlier in the classic six-parter “Genesis of the Daleks”. This serial
would ultimately prove to be Nation’s last contribution to the show that he helped to
make such a resounding success, and so accordingly the DVD release dwells
heavily on the life and times of the Daleks’ real life creator.

The DVD’s flagship
documentary, “Terror Nation”, runs for just under half an hour and looks
at each and every Dalek story that Nation scripted for the series,
beginning with the original 1963 Dalek serial and ending with “Destiny of
the Daleks”. In truth, much of the content is very similar to that seen in
“The Dalek Tapes” documentary that formed part of the “Genesis of the
Daleks” DVD bonus material. The interviews all appear to be newly-shot,
however a lot of the anecdotes are much the same. Do not get me wrong,
there is certainly some new stuff to be found here – Terrance Dicks tells
a quite amusing (albeit second-hand) story about the delivery of the first
draft scripts for “The Daleks’ Master Plan” and Big Finish’s head honcho
Nicholas Briggs sets the record straight as to his views on “The Chase”,
but beyond that there is not all that much fresh material here. And so on
balance “Terror Nation” – a name coined by Briggs’ Grandmother, it seems –
is a well-produced and perceptive documentary, but if you already own (as
practically every Doctor Who fan in the world does) the “Genesis
of the Daleks” DVD, then this documentary has little to offer you.

The “Directing Who” featurette
naturally focuses more on “Destiny of the Daleks” and its production.
Director Ken Grieve recounts the making of this story in a manner that
provides us with technical insight into the logistics of late-1970s
television production, but also quite a bit of interesting, personal stuff
about Douglas Adams, the series’ then-script editor.

The rest of the special
features are somewhat less special, but are well worth a look nonetheless.
Included is a unique trailer originally broadcast on BBC1 just a few weeks
prior to the transmission of “Destiny of the Daleks”. Specially shot on
the “Nightmare of Eden” set, this trailer sees disembodied voice warn the
Doctor about his impending encounter with the Daleks, before wiping his
memory of the whole conversation! When watching these contemporaneous
trailers and continuity titbits, I always find it astonishing just how
badly these things have dated when compared to the actual televised
episodes themselves. The glut of Prime Computers adverts included on the
DVD are perhaps even more palpably a product of their time, though I did
still find the ‘marriage’ skit quite amusing!

Last but not least comes the
commentary. Lalla Ward (Romana), David Gooderson (Davros), and director
Ken Grieve are all on board to share their reminiscences about the making
of the story, but lamentably without the uproarious presence of Tom Baker
the whole thing feels a little dry. All told, I think that the commentary
is quite representative of the

bonus material on the disc –
competent, but far from spectacular.

Of course for many, the
“Destiny of the Daleks” DVD will be just one disc of the eight that make
up the “Davros Collection”, which has been released concurrently. Now I am
not normally one to spend a lot of time lurking in the numerous Doctor Who
forums that are out there, but I have to confess to being quite fascinated
by the strong and conflicting opinions that many fans have voiced about
this release. In a nutshell, the “Davros Collection” contains all of the
previously released ‘Davros’ DVDs and Big Finish audio plays, plus a new

two-disc special edition of
“Remembrance of the Daleks” (including two all-new

documentaries) and an
exclusive Big Finish play entitled “The Davros Mission”. So far as value
for money goes, if you do not already own any of the material contained
therein then the “Davros Collection” is absolutely amazing value for money
but, if like myself you have already purchased all of the previously
released ‘Davros’ DVDs and CDs, it is hard to justify forking out the best
part of a hundred quid just to gain a couple of new documentaries and

an
exclusive play, particularly so soon after the release of the pricey “Key To Time” and “Complete Third Series” DVD box sets. Personally, I
think it is nigh on inconceivable that both this two-disc special edition
of “Remembrance of the Daleks” and “The Davros Mission” will not be released
independently within the next few years, and so I for one am holding
out, on principle if for nothing else! I will tell you what though, one
thing that does please me about this “Davros Collection” is the fact that
Big Finish are finally given some mainstream exposure – it is going to be even harder for
their detractors to claim that their stories “don’t count” now that
they form part of an official BBC DVD release.

Now to look at “Destiny of the
Daleks” itself, first and foremost it has to be said that this serial
suffers tremendously from being pulled in one direction by the writer and
in another by the script editor. Much of the story is incredibly dark –
look at the Daleks’ systematic extermination of the prisoners in Part
Three, for example – whilst bits of it are downright silly. Now I should
make it clear that I am a huge fan of Adams as a writer, but as a Doctor
Who script editor I am not so sure. Some of his little touches are inspired
– the gag with the book about the origins of the universe, for example –
but then some of his other contributions - like K9’s opportune bout of
laryngitis and Romana’s wacky regeneration - are unspeakably horrendous.

Romana’s regeneration scene is
so often lambasted by fans, and with damned good reason. From the
production team’s point of view, it made perfect sense to explain away
Mary Tamm’s sudden disappearance by having Romana regenerate. In itself
this was far from contentious. However, the
execution of this renewal all but destroys everything that makes the
process so special. Romana ‘tries on’ bodies like there is no tomorrow –
typical woman! – before settling on someone else’s; she does not appear to
suffer from any post-regeneration trauma; hell, her personality does not
even change all that much. Some writers have since tried to explain this
bizarre regeneration by implying that Romana belongs to a ‘New Blood’
house that can regenerate as often as they change their clothes, and some
have even suggested that all Time Lady’s can regenerate on a whim.
Personally, I would rather forget that this scene ever happened at all,
though I suppose it could have been worse – I hear Williams and Adams
toyed with the idea of casting a different actress to play Romana in each
story!

Turning to Davros, it has to
be said that Gooderson’s performance is the weakest of any actor ever to
play the role. It is not so much that his performance is bad in itself; it
is more that it is merely a middling imitation of Michael Wisher’s
wonderful portrayal of the character. In fairness, Gooderson’s scenes with Baker’s
Doctor are very good indeed, particularly in the last episode where they
debate the stalemate in the Dalek / Movellan war, but even so Gooderson
does not seem to have either the uniqueness of Wisher or the sheer passion
of Terry Molloy.

However, the concept of
“Destiny of the Daleks” is certainly a captivating one if you are prepared
to indulge Nation’s penchant for human-looking androids. We have the
Daleks

and the Movellans locked in a
cold war – one battle computer against another, each predicting the next
move before it is made and so consequently neither side makes a move.
Ever. Of course, this notion does heavily imply that the Daleks have
evolved to a point where they are now entirely robotic and utterly
incapable of feeling, something that does not really sit right with me.
Part of me cannot help but think that “Destiny of the Daleks” would have
worked far better as a Cyberman story, but I suppose you have to at least
give Nation some credit for the innovative manner in which he demonstrates
this intriguing impasse - paper / rock / scissors: “Paper wraps… jelly baby?”

On the whole, I do not think
that “Destiny of the Daleks” stands up anywhere near as well as any of the
other Davros stories (both on television and on audio), and were it not
for 2 Entertain’s desire to release the aforementioned “Davros Collection”
DVD box set I do not think that this serial would have seen the light of
day on DVD for some considerable time. Nevertheless, Ken Grieve shoots it
beautifully and, save for the notable exception of “City of Death”, this
serial is without doubt a cut above anything else that the 1979/80 season
had to offer.